The menuboard offers chicken cheesesteaks and burgers. We don’t have a fryer or anything, we’re pretty low-tech at the Indy, both have to get run through the oven at least one full time, and depending on if Sysco has sent us precooked burgers or not, twice. They take forever to prepare, and are labeled on the menu as requiring fifteen minutes to prepare. This had led to trouble more than once, most notably when an irrate customer expressed surprised his chicken cheesesteak wasn’t ready — “It’s been ten minutes!” he exclaimed.

“Uh … I told you it would be fifteen,” I replied.

“I thought you were kidding!”

Whatever. In any case, they’re a total and complete pain in the ass to prepare. Last week, Gary was in one of his worse moods, angry and irrate and looking for an excuse to explode. Unfortunatly, I gave him that reason. Was I rude? Was I a dick? Was I a worthless employee? Actually, I just tried to meet a customer’s request.

Gary had told us all to discourage orders for chicken cheesesteaks and burgers, particularly for carryouts. Gary hates it when he sees customers standing around in the lobby.

A group of construction guys or wrench-monkeys or landscapers — I can’t recall — came in, all hungry, all wanting subs. Most settled for cheesesteaks. One guy wanted a burger. I told him it would take twenty minutes. He decided he’d rather have a cheesesteak. The guy behind him wanted a burger too, but he was willing to wait.

So he waited. And his friends got their subs and their sodas and their chips and they ate them and they laughed and talked and told course jokes. And then they left, and milled about their trucks, coming in and out to talk with their lone friend still waiting on his cheeseburger sub.

And eventually it came out, it was wrapped and handed to him, and he scarfed it down in about a minute.

And then I was in for a total ass-reamout by Gary. Apparently, when he said “discourage”, he meant, “refuse.” He was rude, furious, belligerent, and I really was just pushed to the edge. I wanted to punch him. If he doesn’t want me to fucking sell burgers or chickencheesesteaks, why doesn’t he just fucking tell me that? I discouraged the customer from ordering the burger, it was his choice, he made it, why doesn’t Gary go yell at him? I get the whole treatment — y’know that slogan, “the customer is always right?” Apparently at the Indy, it’s actually, “the customer is a worthless fucking moron who doesn’t know goddamn shit.”

And, y’know, that’s fair, most customers are worthless fucking morons.

I mean, still, though, why take it out on me?

Gary, you can be a fucking asshole. Good thing you pay me as well as you do, or I’d've left your employment a long time ago.

Next Tuesday night, I’ve gotten myself scheduled for a Six Feet Under marathon at Chez Zenchick, to watch the final three episodes of the show. I’ve been Netflixing it for several weeks and I finally breached the fifth season. I have some doubts about being able to watch the final episodes on Tuesday — and of course, it all fucking relates to Netflix.

The fifth season is divided among five discs. I’ve got to get the first two discs watched and in the mail by Friday in order to have discs four and five at my place Tuesday in time. No super big deal. The first disc will be in the return mail today, and although I’ll have to watch three episodes today, the second disc will be in the mail Friday morning. But will Netflix pull its Netflix bullshit and not “recieve” them when they actually should have? Sometimes Netflix can be so fucking frustrating.

Couple points about the show:

I’m on the 2nd episode of the season. The guy — a friend of Nate’s from high school — is killed when he runs over himself. Later, when Nate tells David how their friend died, David asks, “How do you run over yourself?” I laughed.

Do you know what they call an Italian prostitute? A pastatute. Hah. (This was George’s lame joke).

The Art Gallery Owner who has been fermenting Claire’s hopes and dreams through the end of the fourth season and into this one has always seemed very familiar to me — his voice, how he carries himself — but it wasn’t until tonight that my brain suddenly clicked — I’m a fan of Star Trek Deep Space Nine, so I am of course familiar with the actor JG Hertzler, who played the Supreme Allied Commander General Martok in the latter seasons of the show, I’m just not used to seeing him sans-Klingon makeup (although he also played a Vulcan in the show’s pilot).

11:14

This movie is a bit odd (and not just because it took two years to go from theaters to DVD). Sort of Robert Altman-ish … you know the type, numerous plot lines following individuals converge seemingly randomly although their paths have all crossed even if they don’t know it. It “starts” with a body following off an overpass and getting creamed by a drunk driver. Of course, per the title, this happens at 11:14 and all of the other plots either lead into or away from the time so for those of you who like your films in chronological order … yeah, well, Gosford Park? The film is funny in a kind of sick way … After a kid gets his dick sliced off by a van’s sliding door, one of his buddies tries to comfort him: “Your cock is like a timex, right? Takes a lickin …” Somehow I don’t think his virgin friend appreciated the attempt at comfort. “No more oral?! Nooooooo…” It’s a decent view (just for the scene where the kid who is having sex in a cemetary gets his head crushed by a crumbling tombstone — there’s a moral here: oh yeah, don’t have sex near a crumbling tombstone), even if Patrick Swayze is in it.

I need a nice vacation before school starts again this fall. My schedule once classes begin will be ridiculously busy — I’ll still be working both delivery jobs, and although I’ll be doing so at reduced hours, I’ll probably still be pulling at least forty hours a week. In addition, I’ll be taking twelve credits. Factor in sleep and homework, and I’m going to be a busy bee.

I’ve been working long weeks in the previous months. Lately, it’s been getting to me. I’ve always been “tense” (as some might say, ‘high strung’) but that’s been magnifying even beyond normal. I’ve got a couple of days off next week, and I’m looking forward to them and have fun things planned — looking forward to seeing you for dinner Sunday night, Dad, happy pre-birthday, old man!; and a Six Feet Under marathon Tuesday night (I’m a huge dork); and matinee showings of Superman Returns and Pirates of the Caribbean on Monday and Tuesday — but what I’d like, what I’d like beyond anything, is two or three days, somewhere isolated, with no computer, no phones, no driving, no television, no radio, no DVD player or VCR or toaster or microwave. Just a fridge with some ham & cheese sandwiches, a pitcher of cold milk, and a stack of books (y’know, and a bed and a working bathroom).

I’ve got a few options for this.

The first is to get in touch with my friend Emily (distinguishable from my sister Emily, because they’re two separate people with the same first name). She lives in DC. When she was in Arlington, I used to swing by her place on mini-vacations, sleep on the couch at nights and read books while she was at work, or venture into DC. Clearly, this wouldn’t be an isolated vacation, but it would be close, and it would get me out of my apartment and out of Timonium for a few days, and it would be good. We’ve sort of drifted apart in the last couple of years, so it would also be a good way to patch that rift.

The second is to call up my Uncle Bill. I have two Uncle Bills. Just so you know, I’m talking about my dad’s older brother. He’s got a place on the southern end of the Eastern Shore, just a few miles above the va part of Delmarva. Of course, this is a long shot and not very desireable, because a.) I’d be looking to “house sit” for him on any vacation he and his wife (my aunt Lynn) might be taking, and he rarely takes vacations that don’t start at 7am and end by 5pm the same day), and b.) he’d expect me to do so much yardwork, that by the time he returned, I’d have a new appreciation for landscapers. On the upshot, though, he’s got a pool.

The third: I, on occasion, house-sit for a former English professor of mine. Even though I haven’t seen her in nearly a year and haven’t had a class with her in over three, she will on occasion e-mail me and ask if it is possible for me to swing past her house in the City and water her plants, and feed her fish and cats. I’ve had a key to her house for years (get your minds out of the gutter, it’s not like that). She’s got a cabin in West Virginia, and has hinted in the past that she and her husband would let me use it for a few days if I wanted.

The more I think about this vacation idea, the more I’m liking it. I’d like to try to do it mid- to late- August. I’m going to have to schedule it around the Dylan Concert I’m planning on attending that month, but that won’t be a problem. Hopefully, I won’t run out of books!

And now for a moment of Lego Zen. From the Lego works of another Baltimore-area Legophile, Marc Nelson jr., a mosaic of Mario in mid jump from, if I am not mistaken, classic Nintendo.

More related mosaics here.

Rove indeed was the leak.

White House political adviser Karl Rove was one of Robert Novak’s sources for the 2003 disclosure of a CIA operative’s identity, the syndicated columnist wrote Tuesday.

Novak said Rove confirmed information from another source, whose identity Novak is still keeping under wraps.